Porsche 917s Are Tiny

Sorry for all the Porsche 917 posts late—you know what? Scratch that. There’s no sense in apologizing for it. I’d probably make damn-near every post about this majestic ride if I could.

Now the videos we saw earlier this week of a 917 (reproduction) in traffic do a bit to give you the true stature of the machine. It’s giant reputation and it’s long low proportions have, like the 910, always made it seem to me like a larger machine. Low- yes; but big. The long swept tail in some iterations make it seem even more so. Even though I’ve seen a 917 in person on the track, and through the window at Symbolic Motors, I’ve never been close enough to actually take in the true scale of the beast.

But this photo from Sports Car Digest of a Gulf liveried 917 parked next to a Porsche 914 on the track at Spa-Francorchamp, 1970, really hits me with the true scale of the thing. I’ve seen hundreds of photos of the Porsche 917: On the track, in the pits, on the big screen. None of them have, for whatever reason, given me a true sense of how small this incredible machine is. I’ve driven a 914, a car so small that I could barely shift into 2nd gear without uncomfortably pushing against my leg. The 917 is TINY.

Maybe it’s like how people are surprised when a famous actor is short when they see them in person, but the 917 seems like too much of a giant to be this small.

[…] Yet again, I’m flabbergasted by how small this giant of a racing machine is. Its reputation, its power, its mystique all manage to make it something enormous in my mind. When we see it next to a car we know, however, it’s true diminutive stature reveals itself. It just seems so impossible to me that it’s really this small; particularly when it’s the Hans Herrmann/Richard Attwood 1970 LeMans winning example shown here in the Porsche Museum’s workshop. […]

I Saw my first 962 up close the other day under in someone garage the otherday. I was shocked at just how small it was. I was always under the illusion it had a big wide stance with a huge rear wing and long tail. Yet the Austin A35 parked next to it looked like a monster truck!!!

I, too, have had the same realization. As a kid watching them at Watkins Glen, they seemed huge. Later in life, I saw one beside a 911, and yes, I can say in general that it looked quite diminutive beside the “big” 911. However, there was one part of that side-by-side comparison: their wheel bases; that’s what made me really realize how petit that monster was.